All's Fair (Fair Folk Chronicles Book 4) by Jeffrey Cook, Katherine Perkins

than Megan, who kept singing as she waited. The rope was lowered again so Megan could secure herself, and this time, Lani helped to drag her up the wall.
    As soon as she reached the top, Megan rolled over the wall, and all three huddled back against the cover of the wall, trying their best to stay out of sight from the guardposts, while Lani coiled her rope back up. Justin, looking especially exhausted, just slumped, removing his gloves, slowly extending and clenching his fingers trying to get some sensation back in his hands.
    Megan finally turned her attention out into the city, immediately getting a feel of military uniformity. The orderly grid of the city was laid out, even in ruins, as half war camp, and half war memorial. Megan wasn't sure if the park-like sections, lined with statuary, had been ruined by time, or if the Fomoire had destroyed most of them when they moved in, but either way, now they were filled with marble debris. Each eighth of the city had barracks, each of which had their own training yard.
    She regretted, for a moment, that she'd seen enough war and preparations for war, in the past two years to recognize those features for what they were, or what they'd been.
    Each eighth also had a single forge—the ringing noises came from those, while more muffled versions came from somewhere below. None of the forges Megan saw had fires burning, but various figures—she realized quickly the resemblance to the slaves driven before the Fomoire at Murias—went to and from each of the apparent cold-iron works.
    Aside from that bit of staffing and a few patrolling guards, the city looked mostly empty. There were numerous vents and chimneys, however, spaced around the city. Smoke and noise rose from these, suggesting a lot more activity below the ground.
    A few seconds after Lani got the coiled rope back into her bag, Ashling and the Count returned from another scouting run. "Come on," hissed the pixie. "The way to one of the stairways down into the city is safe, but it won't be for long."
    Tired and sore as they were, all three still struggled to their feet, moving after Ashling as fast as they dared atop the icy walls.

Chapter 16: Ah, But Underneath
     
    "What is this?" Megan asked, approaching the table. She tried to reason out why it was left out in the open next to a recessed area and what the numerous scratches in its surface meant.
    They'd made it down from the walls just ahead of a guard patrol's passing. Once they reached the city, they found plenty of cover around the buildings, most of them uniform, and set at perfect right angles to one another.
    "I think it's an odds-maker's table," Justin said.
    "What makes you think that?" Megan asked, looking at the table closer.
    "Because I think this recessed area here is a fighting pit, judging by the mooring points for chains, and the bloodstains."
    Megan lost a lot of curiosity about the table after that, urging them back to the cover of the buildings. They'd mostly been able to move about, with so many of the Fomoire having left to march on An Teach Deiridh, but there was always a chance of being spotted by the guards on the walls, running into sentries moving about, or by one of the slaves. For the most part, the latter had kept their heads down, focusing completely on whatever task they were doing, or on their destination, but Megan was still quite sure that if they were spotted, they'd be reported.
    "All right, so where should we start searching?" Megan asked, when she felt they were under sufficient coverage. "We need to make this quick. Sure, it's quiet now, but we need to sleep eventually, and they might have more monsters. We have to assume someone will catch on."
    "We have a lot of area to search, though," Justin said.
    "So, which of the barracks has the armory? That would seem the best bet," Megan said. She looked to Justin first, assuming he'd know the most about that sort of thing.
    Lani answered instead. "I don't think it's going to be in any of